Daily Archives: April 25, 2015

God of love and liberty,
We bring our thanks today for the peace and security we enjoy,
We remember those who in time of war faithfully service their country.
We pray for their families, and for ourselves whose freedom was won at such a cost.
Make us a people zealous for peace, and hasten that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither learn war any more.
This we pray in the name of the one who gave his life for the sake of the world:
Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. Amen.

I contend that when Australians, gather at the town war memorial, there is a permissive and open attitude towards prayer and the divine, which would not normally feature as part of their expression. They are using the national remembrance our fallen soldiers sailors and airmen, as a vehicle for their own spiritual quest. A very legitimate use of the time!

So, on those cold Anzac Day dawns, deep calls to deep. And whether it be the memory of sacrifice of the life of the soldier, the flickering eternal flame, the sound of the trumpet, the lowering of the flag, God seeks to use it all to bring people back to himself, to draw all into the truth of their identity and connectedness with their loving God. And most are not even aware it is happening.

God, in his unfailing love, will use even Anzac Day to draw all people to himself.

Perhaps we should leave the Anzac myth to be extrapolated by the commentators ”“to draw out inspiring stories of heroism, mateship, leadership, and sacrifice ”“ but know, that as Christians who have a call to partner with God, there are people standing next to us at Anzac celebrations, who are actually struggling to find answers to the two great questions of life: ”˜Who am I, and whose am I?’

Historian Stephen Chambers has collected more than 100 rare photographs, many taken by the troops themselves, including poignant images of soldiers from their preparation for the first landings right up until the evacuation.

Not that it asked me and not that it needs me and not that I expect it to do anything but mock me for my efforts, but I’m going to defend the Internet.

Lately, humanity has been flattering itself that it was better and kinder before the Internet ”“ as though we never slipped anonymous notes through locker doors in high-school hallways that were echo chambers in themselves, as if we never wrote on actual walls.

To hear us now, you’d think no one ever ever crank-called late at night, dialled up even before dial-up to offer abuse, stared into other people’s windows through our own twitching curtains.

O Heavenly Father, who hast consecrated the state of matrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church: Give thy grace, we beseech thee, to all who are joined together in holy wedlock, that they may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made; for his sake who adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, the marriage in Cana of Galilee, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Almighty God, who by the hand of Mark the evangelist hast given to thy Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: We thank thee for this witness, and pray that we may be firmly grounded in its truth; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Grant us, O Lord, to pass this day in gladness and peace, without stumbling and without stain; that reaching the eventide victorious over all temptation, we may praise thee, the eternal God, who art blessed, and dost govern all things, world without end.

The experiment with human embryos was dreaded, yet widely anticipated. Scientists somewhere, researchers said, were trying to edit genes with a technique that would permanently alter the DNA of every cell so any changes would be passed on from generation to generation.

Those concerns drove leading researchers to issue urgent calls in major scientific journals last month to halt such work on human embryos, at least until it could be proved safe and until society decided if it was ethical.

Here’s what I mean. Some years ago I received a Christmas letter from the head of an evangelical organization. About halfway through he shared that, sadly, he had gotten divorced that past year. But in the next paragraph he had great news: God had given him a new wife!

Well, maybe there were extenuating circumstances, maybe I shouldn’t judge””but it still irritates me how blandly Christians accept this sort of thing. It used to be that, if gay people were expected to live celibately, married people were expected, at least, to preserve marriage for a lifetime. Even if divorce was unpreventable, remarriage wasn’t assumed. That line about “What God has joined together, let no one put asunder” comes from Jesus himself. (Mark 10:8-9).

Gay marriage is only the last in a long series of shifts in sexual morality. Why didn’t premarital sex or cohabitation galvanize our attention, like this has? Where were the protests then? How did divorce and remarriage become about as frequent among Christians as in the general population?

Gives the job market a few years to bounce back
Opportunity for more specialized student loan debt
Provides more impressive credentials to parents’ friends
Can experience college life anew as mature, wizened 26-year-old…

While I would not go as far saying that it is characteristic of all folks in the Anglican Church in North America, the ACNA does have its share of people who do not want to hear anything that is in their way of thinking even remotely critical of their denomination. They do not want drawn to their attention the areas in which the denomination needs reform. They exhibit a high level of defensiveness. On more than one occasion I have been told in so many words that if I do not have anything nice to say about the ACNA, I should not say anything at all. This is unfortunate because there is a real need for meaningful reform in the ACNA particularly at the denominational level if the ACNA is to be anything more than the latest Anglo-Catholic Continuing Anglican Church in the United States and Canada.

Among the areas in which the Anglican Church in North America is in greatest need of reform is that its most influential leaders evidences no commitment to creating an environment in the ACNA in which all schools of conservative Anglican thought can flourish. The doctrinal statements that the ACNA has produced to date favor the doctrinal positions and related practices of one particular school of conservative Anglican thought over the others. The adherents of the school of thought in question “identify with Roman Catholic teaching and liturgical practices and holds a high view of the authority of clergy and tradition.” [1] In recent years a number of its adherents have also come to identify with Eastern Orthodox teaching and liturgical practices. While some of its adherents idealize the early High Middle Ages period as a golden age of Christianity, others display a greater affinity with the Counter Reformation and post-Tridentian Roman Catholicism.

The Anglican identity of this particular school of thought has been controverted since the nineteenth century. Adherents of the school argue that it alone represents genuine Anglicanism. Critics draw attention to the numerous ways in which it departs from Holy Scripture and the Anglican formularies, the touchstones of historic Anglican identity.